Staff photo.
Mountain Brook Volleyball
Sara Chandler Mitchell won the overall Class 7A Bryant-Jordan Scholar Athlete award. Mitchell was the District 3 representative and beat out three others to win the overall award for 7A.
Sara Chandler Mitchell was speechless — literally — after learning she won the Class 7A Bryant-Jordan Scholar Athlete Award.
“They actually told us all before that the winners had to give a speech,” she said.
Not thinking that she would ever win, there were no words prepared.
“I got super nervous so I wasn’t going to spend very long up there. I certainly wasn’t going to make a production out of it,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell was the District 3 representative, and beat out three others to win the overall award for 7A. The award does more than honor accomplishments in the arena of play, as it combines that with excellence in the classroom as well.
“It’s the kids that are well-rounded and have extreme success on the court and have extreme success in the classroom,” Mitchell’s volleyball coach at Mountain Brook High School, Haven O’Quinn said. “She definitely did both. She’s just such a cool kid.”
As a result, she earned $5,500 in scholarship money that she will use toward her costs of attending the University of Virginia in the fall.
Even though her father attended UVA, she made the decision on her own accord, saying, “That really didn’t have much of an influence on it. I don’t know. It just felt right. I’m very, very excited.”
Mitchell helped lead the Spartan volleyball team to back-to-back state championships her junior and senior seasons, and was thought so highly of by her administrators, counselors and teachers as an all-around individual, she had no shortage of recommendations.
“Honestly, I don’t think you’ll find anybody that can say anything bad about that kid,” O’Quinn continued. “She is extremely mature, so easy to be around, so pleasant.”
Mitchell became a dominant setter and leader of the Mountain Brook volleyball team, but it didn’t start that way.
“It’s so weird to think about because when I was a freshman I had no idea what was in store,” Mitchell said. “I was terrified. I was this little wimpy kid.”
She came to tryouts as a freshman not expecting to make the team. But she and Sara Carr, a dear friend and fellow freshman, both earned spots on a roster chock-full of upperclassmen.
“I think she came in very timid, not expecting to really do too much,” O’Quinn said. “By the end of her freshman year, in postseason play, she was setting.”
She was thrown into the fire and has flourished into a leader, a far cry from her days as that timid freshman.
“It’s hard to realize that you’re the senior and you’re the one everyone is looking to,” Mitchell said. “It’s prepared me for the later things I’ll do. In ninth grade, I could have never imagined the things I would’ve been able to accomplish.”
O’Quinn couldn’t help but repeat herself when asked about Mitchell’s chances of success down the road.“She’s mature. She thinks before she speaks. She just has a sweet, kind heart. She’s just a good person. She’s going to be very successful, whatever she ends up doing.”
